Reservation Rules

Updated
Here are the reservation rules updated for Feb 24, 2011. These rules will be in effect for the 2011 Spring TSLL Season.

Managers (and only managers) will be allowed to reserve practice fields for 2 hour practice slots beginning with the Spring 11 season.

Every manager will be given a team account with which to reserve fields.

When Can I start?

Starting Sundays at Noon, Majors and Minors will be able to reserve 1 field one week ahead. This restriction will be in place until Wednesday at noon.

When can I reserve more than one field?

After Wednesday at noon, the coming week of fields will be made available on a First Come First Serve Basis (FCFS). Unless a large block of fields becomes available, please be considerate and reserve no more than 2 fields in any one week.

How many fields are there?

Last year the City allocated us 18 fields for 28 teams. I don’t expect that to change for 2011. Please email you city council if you feel the city is not supporting little league baseball with enough fields. Maybe if enough people complain they will change their policy.

Do Farm Teams Have to Practice for 2 Hours?

No. However, the system does not support 1 hour time slots therefore, we encourage managers of Farm National teams to share reservation slots if possible.

When Can Farm Managers Reserve Practice Fields?

Starting Monday, at noon, Farm Managers will be able to make reservations. They will be able to reserve one field. If a Farm Manager does login before Monday at noon and reserves a field, their field will be released. I wish we had enough fields to provide equal access to all teams, but the board has decided to support the competitive divisions over the purely instructional.

Having said that, this system ensures that no Majors or Minor teams will be able to reserve a second field before Farm teams are given the opportunity to reserve one field.

Example

On Sunday morning, Feb 21, 2010 at 9AM you wanted to reserve a field for March 1, 2010 you would find all fields CLOSED (unavailable) for reservations until noon. At noon, you would be able to request exactly 1 field for the week of March 1.

Monday, Feb 22nd at 12:00:01 PM, a Farm Manager will be able to reserve a field.

The system will deny anyone attempting to make a second reservation until…

Wednesday at 12:00:01PM. After this dead line you may now request a second field the week of March 1st.

Some notes: You could also request at any time an additional field the week of Feb 22nd to Feb 28th as current week fields are FCFS.

Diagram

This might be clearer if I drew a picture… so I did.

Fields Released To the City

To save money on lights, any fields that need lights that are NOT reserved in the very next coming week will be released back to the city and deleted from the system making them unavailable.

FAQs

What about multiple requests?
The system was designed to allow you to queue up requests. In practice however it seems to be simpler to grant the first request a user posts if we can. Eventually we may automate the process to cycle through the requests, but for now it is the first request that matters.

Should I make a second request?
On the off chance two (or more) people are requesting the last field at the exact same time, it’s probably worth while to post a second request because if the first one is full and can’t be filled, the system will try to move onto the second request. But in practice the timing of this is so weird that it’s unlikely to every really happen. (Now watch it happen every day)

How do I release a Field?
Let’s say you accidentally grab a field and time you don’t want or can’t use. Or something changes. There are two ways to release your field reservation. First, in the email you receive there will be a link to a web page that will release your field. Each reservation comes with a Reservation Code and a Release code. You need both numbers to release a field (this prevents someone from guessing other teams reservation numbers and releasing them).

In the event your link doesn’t work, or you have lost your email, or forgotten the codes, you can send an email to the webadmin and request that your field be released. Only requests from the team manager will be honored.

Careful releasing a field via the website is immediate. Sending an email to the admin may take a day or two.

It seems like this system is unfair to Farm Managers
Probably. But if you feel that way, you are encouraged to join the board and help make the system better!
And even if you don’t feel that way you are encouraged to join the board and help make the system better. It is the strength of our volunteers that makes this an awesome league.